North Port police officer
commits suicide
By Dale White & Ian
Cummings
NORTH PORT - North Port Police
Officer Ricky Urbina, facing charges of sexual battery and false imprisonment,
apparently took his own life on Thursday as Sarasota Sheriff's Office deputies
were preparing to arrest him.
Urbina had been in contact with
the authorities and had agreed to turn himself in after a judge signed an
arrest warrant. But as deputies drove to a pre-arranged location to meet
Urbina, they received a report of a shooting at Urbina's home on Spinner Avenue
in North Port.
Sheriff's spokeswoman Wendy
Rose offered no other details about the apparent suicide, saying that city
police have begun a death inquiry.
In the days leading up to his
arrest, Urbina told another North Port officer that the case would cost him not
only his job and freedom, but his marriage, according to a probable-cause
affidavit released by the Sheriff's Office.
The second North Port officer
linked to the investigation, Melanie Turner, was arrested Thursday, accused of
being a principal to sexual battery and false imprisonment.
North Port Police Chief Kevin
Vespia announced later Thursday that there would be a news conference this
morning, and that the department had opened an administrative investigation
“into the conduct of some of its officers.”
Disturbing allegations
The Sheriff's Office released
investigatory documents that, in graphic detail, spelled out the case against
the two officers.
Late on March 1, it is alleged,
Turner and Urbina attended a party in North Port where they handcuffed a woman,
took her into a bedroom and subjected her to sexual battery.
Urbina, 44, was said to have
been on duty and in uniform when he got to the party. The accuser, who has not
been publicly identified by law enforcement, was hosting the party at her home
to celebrate her boyfriend's birthday, according to the Sheriff's Office
report. She did not know Urbina, who was reportedly invited by Turner.
Shortly after Urbina arrived,
the woman saw one of her guests handcuffed. Then, the woman claimed, the
officers cuffed her.
The woman told investigators
that Urbina and Turner, who had been drinking, led her into a bedroom.
The woman said she thought it
was “merely party fun” at first but was shocked and “flabbergasted” when the
two officers did not free her.
The officers reportedly pulled
off her clothes and forced themselves on her. The woman cautioned that if her
boyfriend “sees what you are doing to me, he is going to kill you both,”
according to the report.
At that point, the report said,
Urbina closed the blinds to the bedroom, removed the cuffs from the woman and
left the room with Turner, leaving the woman alone.
Minutes later, she emerged from
the bedroom crying and told a friend that she had been “violated.”
The friend told off-duty North
Port Officer Keshia Veigel, who was at the party, the report said. Veigel, in
turn, told another officer, Jeff Wilson, who was there and off duty. And Wilson
“immediately” contacted a North Port police supervisor.
Sarasota deputies arrived at
the party to investigate.
The accused officers were
placed on administrative leave on March 2, and the North Port police brought in
the Sheriff's Office to investigate. Meanwhile, North Port refused to release
the accused pair's names.
Their identities soon became
the subject of a legal battle, as Michael Barfield, a paralegal, was sued by
the city. He had sought the names of all North Port officers on administrative
leave.
Urbina's history
Eric Reisinger, Urbina's
attorney, said he had been on the phone with Urbina for much of the day.